24h Le Mans finish in 1969

If you take a look at the start or the finish of the 24 heures du Mans edition 1969, you may not have seen anything like it.

Jacky Ickx deliberately walked across the track to his car at the start of the race. He wanted to make a statement. Running to your car and starting sometimes without fastening your seatbelts  was indeed a dangerous thing.
And this same Jacky Ickx (teamed with Jacky Oliver) crossed the line first at the finish in his Ford GT40 with only a small margin in front of the Porsche 908 number 64 from Hand Hermann and Gerard Larrousse.

Gerard Larrousse was a member of the Porsche team with the aim of doing five rallies. Because his Monte Carlo Rally went well, Rico Steineman proposed him to do the Targa Florio. There he did a good race and Porsche wanted him now for Le mans. He knew the race, having participated twice for Alpine.

Larrousse was teamed with Hans Hermann to drive the Porsche 908 coupé, a car he had not driven before. The car featured two mobile wings at the rear to stabilise the car in high speed.
That led to a discussion in practice because the ACO wanted to block these little wings, but the rear-flaps of the 917 were allowed for security reasons.

But their Porsche did fine anyway. Hermann took the start and Larrousse could see the start. He found the action of Ickx one of the courageous things he had ever seen.And  yes, Ickx was right. Just after the start, in lap 1, the Porsche 917 of John Woolfe crashed into the barrier. With no safety belts on, Woolfe did not survive the accident. Not much later, the Spyder of Jo Siffert retired. (photo below #20)

Around 19.30 h the Porsche got a problem with a  wheel bearing. Repairs costed around 30 minutes. That ended their target schedule for the race. They were back in the race in P12 and got carte Blanche from Steineman to go flat out all the way.
During the night they were the quickest car. There were clouds of fog, but for a rally man as Larousse, this was no problem.

Big emotions in the night. Gerard was catching Udo Schütz. But in a the Hunaudiere corner, Schütz went off track. At a pitstop Professor Bott and the engineers Pietch and Falk inspected the Porsche extensively, because Schütz said he was pushed by Larroussse. But no, the German just got a faulty reaction when he Larrousse got so close so fast.

They were now on P8. The 917 of Elford-Attwood was way in front followed by Lins-Kaushen.
The #64 got in touch with the Ford of Ickx-Oliver around 8 am. They just had lost some time in the pits when the brake discs had to be changed.

Between 10 and 11 am almost at the  same moment there was a retirement of Attwood and Lins. With 3 hours of the race left, Larrousse- Hermann were second, one lap behind the GT40.

With three hours to go, the race had become a pure sprint. The Ford GT40 of Ickx–Oliver still held the lead, but not by much. The Porsche #64 was flying, its earlier problems now transformed into motivation. Hermann, ever smooth and calculating, kept chipping away at the gap. Every lap, the stopwatch showed the same story: the Porsche was consistently faster.

The tension grew when small vibrations appeared under braking. At first Larrousse thought it was a flat spot, but the team assured him it was simply the price of running flat-out for hours. There was no time to worry—only to attack.

With 90 minutes left, Larrousse gave the car back to Hermann for the decisive push. Big error from teamboss Piech, preferring experience over youth. The track was warming, the wind changing slightly along the Mulsanne, and the 908 seemed to cut through the late?afternoon air better than ever.

The gap dropped to seconds. Spectators began to realise that something unprecedented was unfolding: a race that had looked comfortably in Ford’s hands was now turning into one of the closest battles in Le Mans history.

With about 30 minutes remaining, Ickx jumped back into the Ford for the final stint, determined to defend the lead. But the GT40 had one disadvantage: fuel consumption. The Porsche was lighter and could stretch its stints; the Ford would need a final splash of fuel. Ickx tried to save as much as possible while keeping the pace high, but Hermann behind him was relentless, pushing the 908 harder and harder through Indianapolis and Arnage.

At 15 minutes to go, the inevitable happened.
The Ford turned into the pits for that short but crucial refuelling stop.
Porsche #64 blasted past on the main straight.

Now Hermann was leading Le Mans.

But not for long.

Ickx rejoined just behind, and what followed was no longer an endurance race—it was a duel. For the last laps, two drivers who had already been racing for nearly 24 hours fought like it was a three?lap sprint at Monaco. Ickx used every bit of slipstream on the Mulsanne to stay within striking distance while Hermann tried to break away.

Then came the final lap, forever etched in Le Mans history. The more experienced Hermann got on the breaks earlier than young drivers would do. Into the Mulsanne kink, Ickx braked a fraction later.

Hermann saw it, tried to stay alongside, but the Ford had the inside Ickx feigned a move on the approach to the Mulsanne kink, forcing the Porsche to defend the inside. That compromised the Porsche’s exit speed. Ickx, perfectly placed, pulled alongside and past with millimetric precision. At Maison Blanche Hermann tried one last counterattack, but the GT40—despite being an ageing design—held firm.

Ickx crossed the line first by just 120 meters after 24 hours of racing. It would be his first 24h race win and more would follow.

Larrousse and Hermann however had driven a heroic race, transforming a 30?minute delay into one of the most dramatic chases the event had ever seen. For many, their performance was the true highlight of that year’s edition. And for Larrousse, the young rally man drafted late into the Porsche squad, it marked the beginning of a Le Mans legacy that would follow him for decades